‘You spend enough time with a lion, the idea of roaring
seems more and more reasonable.’ – Citizen X
The rain had returned, and brought its friend the wind, to bully the tamarind tree outside my window next morning. Little circles of white light danced with mercury beads, all over the shiny cement outside. I awoke plastered with the musty smell of the bedding. I slipped on a fresh damp T-shirt and blue cords, packed my diver’s bag, and went down to the front room for nine Tanzanian shillings worth of eggs and coffee. The volume of the black banter faded briefly and then returned as I entered. These people may have had vehicles, but they stared at me harder here than they had on the road that never was. I was planning a slow day.
I started to feel a little better as the wind died and the rain went off to the funeral. The sun returned, to guide me out of town. I was heading east to Zanzibar, and I had just walked the first three miles, when a Land Rover pulled over for my thumb, just past the pine tree plantation of an agricultural station. A second ride took me another fifteen miles. I was planning a slow day. But I was wrong.
A powder blue Fiat truck, piloted by two Somalis, pulled over at the top of an arduous trek up a long hill. Sido and Hasan were going all the way to the Dar es Salaam, the Harbour of Peace, and they invited me onboard.
“Salaam Aleichem,” Sido said.
“Aleichem Salaam,” I said right back.
Hasan poured me a cardamom tea from his flask. It was ambrosia, and a foretaste of East African spices to come. He and Sido spoke Arabic, Swahili, and a ‘leetle Eengleesh,’ but we would understand each other completely, except maybe once.
Over the next three days, we would laugh and grow to be good friends, not in any small way due to the contribution of Hasan’s bottomless cups of cardamom chai. Sido made fun of my solar flare red line red nose by calling me ‘Rudolpho,’ until my sunburn healed.
Truck drivers know all the good café stops, and this was no less true on the TransTanzanian than the TransCanada. Our first stop, at a Total petrol station for fuel, finished with a lunch of meat and rice with cardamom sauce and coleslaw. After a while, you learn the difference between meat and rice and rice and meat. I hit it like a black mamba hits a rat. I hadn’t eaten much in the previous week, but I had been also dealing with enteric etiquette, in having to interact with persons of continence. The sudden restoration of my regularity arrived with my appetite, making up for lost opportunity. The next one came after dark, in a green room covered with chicken wire mesh on the roadside wall, and lit by a single bulb. Among the drug dealers, Sido, Hasan and I ate kebabs and grilled bananas, and drank another tea. Back in the Fiat, Sido started picking up speed for no apparent reason I could fathom.
“What’s up, Sido?” I asked.
“Bridge for nineteen tons, Rudolpho,” he said.
“So?” I inquired.
“Heh heh. Us twenty-six,” he said, hitting his top gear. Sometimes shit comes out in two syllables. Heh heh.
We pulled off for a nap about three in the morning, outside Igawa. Sido tapped the top of the Fiat cab, as an indication of how good a place he thought it was, for me to roll out my sleeping bag. I still had my recollection of coming off the top of Annuldo’s truck in Oaxaca, and the tarantulas dodging my flight path through the banana grove. I told him I’d just throw my bedroll between the two back tires. They shook their heads.
“Simba,” said Hasan. “Simba.” I had no idea what they were talking about and jumped down from the cab. We all caught a few hours shuteye.
The mists rose off the savannah as we clocked up the kilometers, past baobabs, impressive rock and termite formations, and the first herds of game I’d seen since Ron and Shirley took me to Mana Pools. Zebra stripes flowed together into op-art collages, among stiff-legged giraffes, wildebeest, water buffalo and impala. I saw solitary elephants taking what refuge they could from the climbing sun, under the spindly branches of scattered acacia and tamarind. Sido turned to me, nodding his Somali head.
“Africa,” he said. I nodded back.
The meat and rice ritual was reenacted in a little hole of a shack on the grasslands, after dark. Followed by another cup of Hasan’s best cardamom brew.
We entered Mikumi National Park a couple of hours after midnight, and Sido once again pulled us off the road for some rest. I got out my bedroll and made to disembark. Sido tapped on the top of the Fiat cab.
“Simba,” said Hasan, looking concerned. Again, I had no idea. My Swahili was limited to basic greetings, and I’d never been a Disney fan.
I rolled out my swag between the two back wheels of the truck and was asleep in minutes. And awake again minutes after that. I had felt the feet end of my mummy bag heading south in forceful tugs, gradually exposing my shoulders to the early morning freshness. Then I heard the roar.
I was out and up on Hasan’s side banging on his door in two heartbeats. My bedding had disappeared out the other side of the tractor trailer wheels, but came around the back of the truck, flitting back and forth off the claws of one of the paws of the big lioness that was trying to shake it off. Two other lions turned the corner with her.
Hasan opened the door, rubbing his eyes.
“Simba,” he said.
“Simba.” I got it, climbing in. We sat and watched them. The big cat finally unhooked my bedroom, and all three sashayed back into the grass. I made a mental note to amend a cardinal rule of hitchhiking: Never sleep under the truck.
Back on the road to Zanzibar, Sido and Hasan were animated until they weren’t. I fell half asleep. My other half was still in shock. I swear I heard the Somalis singing Bruce Cockburn in Arabic.
‘Sun’s up. Mm hmm. Looks OK.
And the world survives to another day…
I had another dream about the lions at the door.
They weren’t half as frightening as they were before.
But I’m thinkin’ ‘bout eternity.
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me…
And I’m wondering where the lions are.
I’m wondering where the lions are.’
Bruce Cockburn, Wondering Where the Lions Are
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Image: u_wocnu4h2o5 Pixabay remixed